The Methodism of Caelius Aurelianus 305
try to compare Caelius Aurelianus with Soranus (or with the fragments of
other Methodists),^38 but this comparison is complicated by the different
status of the extant works; for Soranus’Gynaecia, his only major surviving
work, is a very specialised treatise, and a very practical one at that, whereas
Caelius’AcuteandChronic Affectionsdeal with what may be called the
central concern of Methodism, namely the diagnosis and treatment of dis-
eases.^39 Now we know, for example, from a passage in Caelius Aurelianus^40
that the Methodists were keen to distinguish between different specialised
areas within medicine, such as surgery, pharmacology and dietetics, and to
assign the discussion of a particular aspect of a particular disease to one
area rather than another. This strong sense of compartmentalisation is a
potential source of discrepancies, and hence of apparent inconsistencies,
between the ways a certain subject is dealt with in different contexts.
Yet also the possible explanation of tensions inherent in Methodism itself
should be used with some caution. On the one hand, historians of ancient
medicine have recently stressed that Methodism is not a philosophy but a
way of doing medicine, and a thoroughly practical way of doing medicine
at that – though admittedly not without relation to philosophy – and this
should make us careful not to approach Methodism as if it were an applied
form of Scepticism.^41 After all, practicability was not the major concern, or
indeed the major strength, of Scepticism. On the other hand, we should
demand from Caelius a reasonable degree of consistency and systematicity
(although we may have to allow for some flexibility in the extent to which
this is implemented or for potential divergences between theory and prac-
tice). The point is that doctrinal and methodological tensions may, in the
case of Methodism, find their origin in the fact that the primary concern
of Methodism is the successful diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and in
the Methodists’ belief that all issues that are not necessarily related to this
(such as the question of what the cause of a disease is, or what its correct
definition is, or which part of the body is affected by the disease, etc.) are
considered to be irrelevant or inappropriate. The important consequence
of this is that the Methodists might have been perfectly well aware of some
(^38) See now Moog ( 1994 ) [and Tecusan ( 2004 )].
(^39) Incidentally, one might conclude from this that, other things being equal, for the reconstruction of
mainstream Methodist doctrine we are in a much better position with Caelius Aurelianus than with
Soranus (contra Lloyd ( 1983 ) 185 – 6 : ‘For our purposes the extant original Greek of theGynaecology
is both more reliable and more interesting than the paraphrastic Latin versions of hisAcuteand
Chronic Diseasesthat we have from Caelius Aurelianus’).
(^40) Chron. 2. 12. 146 .Cf.Sor.,Gyn. 1. 4.
(^41) This point has been made by Gourevitch ( 1991 ) 67 – 8 against Edelstein ( 1967 b) 173 – 91. See also
Lloyd ( 1983 ) 183.